Welcome to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I’m your host, Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned Paper 5 STEM teacher and coach. With over a decade of experience teaching and a master’s degree in STEM leadership, I’m here to coach you throughout the year to help you gain back more time to create innovative experiences for your students.

 

In today’s episode, I’m going to be sharing with you some fun spooky STEM lessons that are things that glow. There’s just something about that glowing touch to the projects that make the projects a little bit more exciting, especially during this time of year when the days are starting to get shorter, it’s getting dark earlier. So I think it’s going to add that fun little spooky element in your class.

 

If you haven’t already grabbed it, and it’s also linked in the show notes for this episode, I put together a whole guide, 15 plus spooky STEM lessons that you can download for free. And it’s a bunch of different lesson ideas that you can use for your classroom that are also glowing, but also just some fun, spooky themes. And each of the words and pictures you can click on, and it will take you to more information about that lesson.

 

So it’s best viewed on a computer, you can view on your phone, definitely recommend to view that on a computer. So make sure to check that out. The first glowing STEM lesson that your kids are definitely going to love is to build a spooky house.

 

This requires minimal materials, super easy to prep, all you need is the free spooky house template that I put together for you. And with that, there is a video that I recorded of me building and explaining this little house. It’s a lot of cutting and folding.

 

Again, it’s one sheet of paper for one house. But it’s really good for kids to practice those skills and also to take their time and to be precise. And if they do those things, it will be put together very easily.

 

It’s very similar to building a paper dice, if you’ve ever done that with kids. And some of my other lessons actually have building a paper dice in there, like my Goldilocks digital citizenship lesson that is about private and personal information. This is really fun, where they build this cute little spooky house, they can decorate it if you want.

 

And then if you have those small LED battery tea lights, you can put that inside. And if they hold it on a paper plate, it’ll hold the light in the house. It glows really, really cool.

 

If you follow me on Instagram, I actually have a video of this in action. But this is a great one day lesson. Again, works on that precision and cutting and taping skills, which we know are needed even outside of a STEM classroom.

 

But this is a fun little spooky lesson that my students definitely enjoyed. The next glowing STEM lesson is so much fun. And you can do this during spooky season.

 

And or if you’re planning on having a glow day, which is when I actually taught this lesson, is creating glow in the dark slime. And it sounds a little bit intimidating. But trust me, the recipe that I put together, and I wrote it in smaller proportions, where you don’t need a whole lot of materials to create the slime, it’s just enough where the kids can independently pour the ingredients, measure those out and put it together.

 

And what makes this slime glow is the glue. This isn’t sponsored, but Elmer’s actually makes a glowing glue, a glowing liquid glue. There’s a few different colors.

 

I particularly enjoyed the blue one, and it has some sparkle too. But it’s really, really fun to create this slime. And again, it glows.

 

You don’t need a black light. When I did a glow party, and I could do a whole episode on a glow party, I can go back and see the pictures that I took of that time. You just want to make sure that the bottle of glue, the glowing glue, gets some sunlight, some natural light before you create it.

 

And then if you go into a dark space, it will glow right away. When I was testing my slime, when I was recording the video for this, I forgot that my nails actually glow as well. So I have some cute little spooky nails.

 

And so I’m taking a video of this, and not only is the slime glowing, not only is this slime glowing, but my nails were as well, which was pretty funny. That’s a fun activity. And you can go deeper into this with the worksheets I have for it, where you talk about the three states of matter and how slime is actually non-Newtonian fluid and has properties of solids and liquids.

 

So there’s actually a testing sheet that you could go through that process and really understand what properties of the slime prove that it’s a non-Newtonian fluid. So it’s pretty cool. And the last glowing STEM activity, which you don’t have to make this glow, but I recommend it, is creating 3D printed Halloween keychains.

 

This is a lesson that I’m actually putting together, so it might even be live by the time you hear this recording or even a few days from now. So just keep making sure you check back in the show notes. You can easily create little keychains that glow, and there’s 3D print filament.

 

There’s a few brands that I’ve used that glow in the dark. Now, side note, I’m going to tell you how to make those keychains, but when you are printing these, when you’re 3D printing these keychains, you probably want to play around with the settings, because for some reason, glow in the dark filament is a little bit finicky in terms of printing and how it will feed through the extruder. The two that I’ve used have worked okay, depending on what printer I’ve used.

 

So play around with it. They do actually glow. Like, I’m actually shocked.

 

I’ve tested the actual filament before even taking it out of the package to make sure it glows, and it does. You could do this a few ways, where the one filament I’m currently printing, actually a different project, Constellations, for my students, the filament is white. So what is really cool is you can have the kids draw and design their keychain.

 

I recommend, if you want to do this quickly, you can use the free platform Doodle 3D Transform. There’s an app for it, but also it’s an open source website where kids can just draw their design. They don’t need to log in.

 

Tinkercad has a drawing feature, which is okay, if you prefer. I love Tinkercad. Their drawing feature is not great, but you can still use it.

 

And you can have students draw their Halloween keychain. So maybe a cute little ghost, a cute little pumpkin, and print them all in this white glowing filament. So they will glow regardless.

 

And then, if you have some paint markers, which I always have those on stock with my 3D printing club, the kids can actually color in the little designs they want on their keychain. That way, your prints are actually going to print a lot quicker. You can do a lot more at once because you’re only using one color.

 

You could probably get everybody’s prints done in like a day or two because they’re going to be flat. That’s why with Doodle 3D Transform, it’s really great because they’re a flat design. There’s not a lot sticking out.

 

So they print really well. And then you can have these cute little keychains for your student. If you’re wondering how to add the hole, what you would do is there’s an eraser in that platform.

 

You just like kind of, and you might want to do this as the teacher depending on the age of your students, but tap in a little spot where you want a hole. So it erases it. You could see the work plane behind it.

 

You could even draw like a little tab onto the keychain and then add a hole there if it doesn’t make sense in the designs. That is something I’m going to put together in a video. That’s my next on my list.

 

If you are pretty comfortable with those platforms, you’re like, all right, I’m good. Go for it. I think they’ll be really cute.

 

The ones I’m going to make for samples, I’m going to end up giving to my nephews because I’m going to trick or treat with them. So I hope you enjoy all these glowing spooky STEM ideas. And again, make sure to check out that free printable I put together for you where you can see these ideas and more to bring the spookiness into your STEM space.

 

Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore, or send me an email to elementarystemcoachpodcast at gmail.com. Also make sure to check out my website, naomimeritus.com to see all the show notes from today’s episode and shop my K-5 STEM resources. Any questions you have, needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch.

 

I’ll talk to you soon.

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